


The Power of Us

by TheGrandQueen01



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Clothing swap, College, Cuddling, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I'll update tags as we go, Iwaizumi is everyone's favorite, Kuroo is an asshole at first, M/M, Misunderstandings, Movie Nights, Name Calling, Oikawa's Knee Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25082341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGrandQueen01/pseuds/TheGrandQueen01
Summary: Oikawa and Iwaizumi somehow managed to go to the same university and play on the same college team. They have goals, the first of which is finally crushing Ushijima on the court. But first, Oikawa and Kuroo need to figure out their beef, Bokuto has to chose a subject for his photography project, Daishou needs to find a way to convince their coach to give him game time, and Iwaizumi needs to survive his classes.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32
Collections: Oikawa Fic Exchange Spring 2020





	1. Kuroo and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LetsHaikyuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetsHaikyuu/gifts).



> When I started this fic, I was planning for it to be 8k at the absolute most. It grew up to be a monster instead. Oops. 
> 
> Also I am lazy and did not actually research how the volleyball season works, so I am begging you to suspend your disbelief.

Kuroo glared at his sleeping housemates and debated his next move. It was not the first time he’d found Iwaizumi and Oikawa asleep cuddled up together somewhere in the house, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. He just really wished Iwaizumi wouldn’t let the demon into their room. They could go to the fucking snake layer and bug Daishou, or infect the couch in the living room. Anywhere but Kuroo’s sleeping space.

He could slam things and wake them up, but Iwaizumi was a generally decent person. Despite his long history with Oikawa, Iwaizumi had remained largely neutral in the ongoing feud between the two former captains. He’d been fair about the whole thing, and Kuroo really didn’t want to pay him back by being an asshole. Though, he did question his roommates taste in friends. Surely there were other people in Miyagi prefecture Iwaizumi could have spent his childhood with.

Kuroo pursed his lips as he studied the two sleeping figures and weighed his options. In sleep, Oikawa didn’t look suspiciously innocent or overwhelmingly charming or inhumanly intense. He just looked beautiful in a way that begged for someone to capture the moment. Kuroo’s hands itched for his phone, to snap a picture for later perusal.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath. Kuroo shook his head, as if he could physically dislodge the thoughts from his brain and stuck his tongue out at the unseeing figures in Iwaizumi’s bed. He would be a decent roommate instead exploiting the potential to ruin Oikawa’s day. If he was fleeing the room to avoid the temptation to keep staring at Oikawa when he was incapable of pissing Kuroo off, then no one needed to know.Kuroo spun around on his heel and headed to the gym early. He could just take out his frustrations by slamming a ball across the court for an extra hour. Things would be fine.

*

Things were most certainly not fine. Daishou already had a cart of balls half empty from his own serve practice and a glint in his eye that promised trouble. Kuroo took one look at it and knew he should have gone to the library instead.

Resigned to a shitty afternoon thanks to his abismal luck, Kuroo headed to the locker room to change and prayed to any diety that might listen to help him survive whatever bullshit Daishou felt the need to throw his way. He dragged his feet getting ready and contemplated just hiding in the locker room until it was time for team practice, but that would give Daishou more ammo against him, and Oikawa was always to happy to join the snake in poking at Kuroo. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

He took his time in the bathroom then finally walked his sorry ass onto the court with a fresh cart of balls. Daishou was smirking but silent, and that just worked Kuroo up even more. His serves were going all over the place, the accuracy he’d been working on improving since the end of nationals nowhere to be seen. And the whole time, he felt the heavy, judging eyes of his new teammate observing every one of his failures.

Another serve landed wildly off its mark and Kuroo stared in disbelief. “Un. Fucking. Believable,” he muttered.

By the time the hour was up and the rest of their team started trickling in, Kuroo was ready to pull his hair out. He kept waiting for a snide remark that never came, and it was somehow worse that way. It was almost a relief when he heard Oikawa’s giggling and Bokuto’s eager planning for his next photography assignment.

Kuroo couldn’t relax, even when the coach called them all together and set them up for two hours of rotating three-on-three matches. Every serve landed wrong, every block was off time, and every spike unsuccessful in scoring a point.

It was the worst when he and the two upperclassmen working with him ended up across the court from Oikawa, Bokuto, and the second-string libero. He was up to serve again, the ball spinning between his fingers. Across from him Bokuto burned with a determination brought on only by competition, and Oikawa smirked at him as if to say _You’ve been fucking up all day. Let’s see the next one_. He took a breath, swallowed, and let the ball fly.

Seconds later, Kuroo winced as his serve landed out of bounds. That was the third one this scrimmage, and he’d only served _three times_. Oikawa, the prick, laughed at him from the other side of the net and retrieved the ball.

“Don’t worry, Kuroo-chan. I’ll show you how it’s really done,” he taunted.

Kuroo watched, glare marring his usually handsome face, as Oikawa set up for his serve and pointed right at him. He was so damn confident Kuroo wouldn’t receive his serve even knowing Nekoma’s reputation. Kuroo shifted his stance as Oikawa spun the ball. Sweat dripped down his back as the ball left the spiker’s hands. He blinked as the sound of Oikawa’s palm slamming into the ball echoed through the gym. Kuroo moved, forward and to the left, to receive. And nearly tripped over the ball as it slammed into the ground before smacking him in the face on rebound.

He only had a second of surprise before anger flooded his system. He could feel Oikawa’s shit-eating grin without even looking up, but he didn’t give the other the satisfaction of seeing his scowl.

Oikawa hadn’t been serving like that during their training camp. Or during the three weeks of school they’d already gotten through. Had he been holding back? Or did he really put in enough hours of extra practice, on top of their already insane schedule, to improve that much?

“How the fuck did he pull that off,” one the third year on his side of the net asked.

At least he wasn’t the only one blindsided.

“Forget it,” his other teammate replied. “Doesn’t matter. Just shake it off and get the next one.”

Kuroo accepted his teammates slaps on the back and returned to position, his shitty day only getting shittier by the minute.


	2. The First Practice Match

Their coach stood before them, forehead glistening and beer belly straining against his jacket, looking for all the world like nothing could annoy him more than the faces of the players gathered around him. Oikawa wasn’t sure he’d seen the coach look anything but annoyed even once since the year began. Maybe it was his equivalent of a Resting Bitch Face. “Listen up,” he yelled, because he didn’t know any other volume. “There are only four weeks left before our first official match, so I want you all to use today’s practice match as an opportunity to get used to your new positions. We have several new starters, which means our team dynamic is changing. Take advantage of today to get used to each other and improve your teamwork.”

Oikawa cringed at the mention of teamwork. They were far from anything he thought could really be called a team, and somehow he didn’t see them realistically getting over their issues in time for their first tournament. Not without a big push in the right direction. Unfortunately being caught in the middle of one of the main issues meant Oikawa himself was in no shape to make that push himself.

He knew—realistically, intellectually––that he and Kuroo needed to get over their shit if they wanted to win. He knew that he should swallow his stupid pride and find a way to make that happen. But their feud was a two-way street, and he didn’t know where Kuroo’s problem started, let alone how to push them both past it.

Iwaizumi bumped their shoulders together and gave him a look. In this, at least, they were on the same page. Oikawa took his place as the first to serve and watched as Kuroo and Bokuto filled his vision of the front line. Iwaizumi was on the bench, for now. Oikawa took in the broad back of their captain and libero Funaki, the ace Takeda, and their resident guess-blocker Miyazawa. The lack of Iwaizumi’s familiar form had something in his chest curling uncomfortably, and he wondered if the others felt it too, the strange disconnect caused by the absence of their usual partner. Kuroo and his former setter’s relationship was not unlike his and Iwaizumi’s, and Bokuto had been unabashedly vocal about his precious Akaashi. Part of their issues connecting laid in their mourning the strong bonds that ended when they started as part of a new team.

Oikawa spun the ball between his hands once. He didn’t know how to be the best setter for either of those two yet. They were hard for him to read, Kuroo doubly so because of their constant bickering. But he would be damned as a setter if he couldn’t give them exactly what they needed to welcome in a victory.

The ball spun between his grasp a second time. The whistle blew, and Oikawa slammed the first serve of the game across the court. A service ace.

He went for it again and winced as the ball landed just outside the lines.

Funaki went to say something encouraging but Kuroo cut in first, “I thought you were supposed to be some amazing King of Serves, Oikawa.”

“Shut up, Kitty-Cat-chan. At least I don’t flub all of my serves.”

“Enough,” Funaki barked before the ref had a chance to reprimand them.

The ref blew his whistled to start the next play. Oikawa watched as a jump-float serve set his side of the court in disarray. Kuroo collided with Takeda trying to receive it, which led to the ball hitting the ground instead of rising in the air as both players went sprawling to the ground. Oikawa winced again. Takeda had to be feeling the pressure to prove himself with both Iwa-chan and Daishou on the bench ready to take his place, and he certainly wasn’t doing himself any favors making beginner mistakes like that. It was already clear, at least to the setter, that Iwa-chan was a better choice to have on the court as an all-rounder, and Daishou was quicker on his feet when things went awry. Takeda probably felt very much what Oikawa felt when Kageyama showed up in his life. But that was the game, and he should be prepared to deal with it. Only the strong were allowed to remain on the court to fight. 

The whistle blew again, and Oikawa prepared to receive again.

*

Iwaizumi watched as their team quickly lost the first set 20-25. They were strong as individuals, but there was little hope with how often they nearly killed each other on the court going after receives that clearly weren’t theirs. The strong could be strong together, but if they were too busy getting in each other’s way instead of functioning as cooperative cogs in a machine then that strength hardly mattered.

“It’s almost the perfect opposite to Seijoh.”

Oikawa stopped drinking and hummed, a wordless demand for him to explain himself.

“We were strong in highschool because of our teamwork. We were solid, and our communication and reactions were good because we trusted each other. Here, no one trusts anyone, so all of our individual strengths end up going down the toilet.”

Oikawa nodded along. “The team with the stronger six is the strongest, but if you can’t act like a team it ends up not mattering at all.”

“Now we need to figure out-“

“Iwaizumi!” Their coach called. “You’re in for Takeda. I want to keep the same formation.”

Iwaizumi thought keeping the same formation might be a mistake, but he didn’t say anything. This wasn’t Seijoh. The coach wasn’t one to leave the plays up to the team, at least not yet.

He felt almost guilty when he stepped onto the court, if only because the expression on Takeda’s face reminded him of Oikawa. But he hadn’t fought so hard to be on the team just to sit games out on the bench, so he met Oikawa’s raised hands with his own, the sharp sting when their palms met relaxing something tight in his gut that had taken up residence the moment he saw Oikawa on the court without him. Iwaizumi settled into a comfortable position and waited for his chance at the ball.

Being a starter as a first year usually meant you were some kind of genius, or something very special. You had to have something extra in your play to make up for what you lacked in experience compared to the upperclassmen. Iwaizumi was self-aware enough to admit his strength was not something flashy. It would take time before their coach replaced Takeda with him permanently, but he would. Iwaizumi knew he would.

He’d been Seijoh’s Ace for a reason.

*

Their loss in the second set was just another stinging reminder of how far they had to go with so many new players and so many different experiences and habits crammed together before they’d really be able to compete with other teams. Their coach may be a crank pot, but he was gutsy too, throwing all the talented first years together and trying to see what kind of new weapon they could become.

Iwaizumi grit his teeth and found Oikawa’s eyes already searching for his. University was their chance for revenge, to finally take Ushijima down, yet he couldn’t picture it happening. He’d, somehow, managed to land himself a scholarship on the same team as Oikawa, and they’d sworn they’d use it to see their dreams through.

The likelihood of it actually happening seemed to be slipping away, though. He could see the same conclusion reflected in the eyes of his best friend. They needed a plan, and fast.


	3. The Model and the Photographer

When he agreed to help Bokuto, Oikawa hadn’t realized he’d practically be signing away his soul to the most disorganized person in the world. The photography student spent most of their time together snapping shots of animals, flowers, random strangers, and buildings. Oikawa hadn’t expected a beginner student like Bokuto to work on the same level as his brother by any means, but he’d thought at the very least he’d have some kind of game plan as to what kind of photos he wanted for this crazy project. Clearly, he’d expected too much.

To sum it up in a few words, Oikawa kind of regretted agreeing to model for Bokuto’s photography project. It was nothing like the days when his sister used him to complete her art elective assignments, having a plan down to the last sweep of his hair, or even when he’d modeled for his brother’s website. Hell, it wasn’t even like the struggle of getting an Oikawa family photo. 

He’d expected something like that, though he recognized that no one was ever quite as clear in what they wanted as an Oikawa with a vision. Bokuto’s train wreck of a system was just not working. They were barely two weeks into the school year and already Oikawa was pulling all-nighters to make up for time lost helping his roommate. He didn’t even want to start thinking about the other train wreck casting a shadow over his perfect college experience: the volleyball team.

Nope. He wasn’t going there.

It was Sunday. He had no practice, no classes, and no homework to catch up on. It was the glorious day of lazing in bed and pretending life didn’t suck. Maybe, _maybe_ , rousing himself to walk down the hall and laze the second half of the day away flopped face down on Iwaizumi’s bed. If he was feeling ambitious.

Sunday was not the day of getting up the the asscrack of fucking dawn, jarred out of sleep by his bird-brain roommate literally jumping on him and squealing in his ear about _sunrise_ and _perfect lighting_ and _the best idea ever._ Only for Oikawa to spend four hours trying to decipher Bokuto’s completely unintelligible instructions. And for that effort to only produce two photos Bokuto liked. Oikawa didn’t photograph poorly. He just didn’t. How was it even possible for them to be so unproductive?

Seriously, Oikawa wanted to slam his head against a wall sometimes. He wished they were on the court, if only because he could speak volleyball like a native. If they were on an even playing field, Oikawa was sure he’d pick Bokuto apart until he knew exactly what made him tick. But he didn’t know jack shit about photography beyond how to take a selfie and how not to look awkward when someone pointed a camera his way. He didn’t speak the lingo, not that Bokuto seemed much better off. So they were, as usual, a mass of miscommunication and apologies and frustration.

Oikawa felt he was justified when he curled up in Iwaizumi’s bed that afternoon, working himself up to full-blown rant while his best friend watched, caught somewhere between amused and annoyed, from his desk. It was too hot to wrap himself in all the bedding available, but he did it anyway. Iwaizumi just settled in for the ride, comfortable in the routine of letting Oikawa work through his frustrations so he didn’t blow up on someone else, someone who didn’t deserve it.

“And this isn’t even the first time, Iwa-chan. It’s only been two weeks! And yesterday he didn’t even bother to show up, and he didn’t notice until I finally got home. He was playing video games with Tendou. All afternoon. Can you believe this? How am I supposed to work with someone who’s this unreliable? And I haven’t even told you about how-“

“Maybe you’re just a shitty model.”

Oikawa’s neck nearly cracked from how fast he turned to the unfamiliar voice. Kuroo Tetsurou leaned against the doorframe, still dripping from his shower.

“Mind your own business.”

“You’re talking about Bo, and since we’re friends it is my business.”

Oikawa took a breath and tried to explain. “It’s really not-“

“I bet you didn’t even try talking to him about any of this, you just came to bitch about it behind his back.”

He should really calm down, but he couldn’t. He’d talked to Bokuto, they were fine. He just needed to vent about things so he could move on. Why did everyone always make him the fucking monster, when all he was trying to do was prevent that from happening? “You don’t know anything.”

“I know that-“

Footsteps pounded up the stairs accompanied by a loud, “GUYS!” Seconds later Bokuto practically slammed into the doorway as Kuroo jumped away. “The third years just invited us to ramen and I said yes so let’s go. Oh, Oikawa! I finished editing the photos from this morning if you wanna check them out later.”

Oikawa forced his face to move, exchanging the blank expression he’d adopted when he first heard Bokuto to something brighter, excited, and just as false. He was tired, and there were too many unfamiliar people taking up too much of his space, and he wanted to be with Iwa-chan doing something stupid and familiar like watching Godzilla or combing through alien conspiracy forums. He felt Kuroo’s eyes on him, as judgmental as a haughty cat, and he forced his smile brighter out of spite.

His dream college experience felt out of reach, and his hopes for redemption in volleyball after the numerous failures of his third year felt like a pipe dream. If these were his teammates, and they were already at each others throats, then he and Iwaizumi had their work cut out for them finding a way to pull them all together despite their murky history and more recently developing issues. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Kuroo and Daishou hated each other from day one, and for some unknown reason Kuroo decided to extend that hate to him.


End file.
